Ali Larijani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and one of the most powerful figures in the Islamic Republic's clerical regime, threatened US President Donald Trump with assassination in a post on X.
"The freedom-loving nation of Iran is not afraid of your hollow threats," Larijani opened his post. "Even those who were mightier than you have failed to destroy the Iranian nation. Watch yourself – or you'll be eliminated," the senior official wrote.
Larijani's remarks came in response to an unusually forceful briefing by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which he used especially harsh language toward Iran's leadership. "Like the terrorist cowards they are, they fire missiles from schools and hospitals, and deliberately target civilians because they know their military has been systematically degraded – and destroyed. Iran's neighbors, and in some cases its former allies in the Gulf, have abandoned it. And its proxies – Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas – are broken, ineffective, or sidelined. Iran stands alone, and it is losing badly," Hegseth said.
The defense secretary also addressed the intensity of US strikes and said, "Today will be, again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. The greatest number of combat aircraft, the greatest number of bombers, and the greatest number of strikes. Intelligence is more precise and more refined than ever before. On the other hand, in the past 24 hours, Iran has launched the lowest number of missiles it is capable of launching since the fighting began." Hegseth addressed the claim that Israel has been striking infrastructure targets, which contradicts the military objectives he set, and said, "Israel has been a very strong partner in this effort. Where it had different targets, it acted to achieve them. Ultimately, we remained focused on our targets. But what Iran has experienced is the power of the two strongest air forces in the world."
"In this particular case, those were not our strikes or our target, or it wasn't necessarily our target. But the president has made clear that, regarding these concerns, we are not being dragged in any direction. We are leading. The president is leading. He sets where we want to go, what the outcome will be, and what the end state will look like, with very careful consideration. And I understand these concerns, because I've heard them from many people who have been through this. I myself went through twenty years of these wars – with the fear of being drawn in, of mission creep, and of nation-building or spreading democracy. That was never the approach the president has taken on this issue," Hegseth said.
